A mass exodus of people from the North East from several states due to rumors

Thousands of students and professionals working in other states of India have returned home because of rumors, SMS'es and stray incidents of violence ! Special trains have been arranged especially from Bangalore to accommodate this mass exodus. The home minister of Karnataka has been in the railway station for 2 trying to convince them that Bangalore is safe , but the recent Pune violence has created irrational panic leading to exaggerated threat perception and them seem in no mood to listen to any assurances!

First, 7,000 (according to one report) have abandoned Bangalore. Now the exodus has started from Chennai. It could be just naivety/ignorance on my part, but I believe Chennai to be mercifully free of the factions that turn on other communities --- but still people are worried enough to be running home.

Many such migrant workers are in jobs such as security or labouring, but many are also professionals in, eg, software engineering. These people's families may be poor. They are sufficiently worried to be giving up economic lifelines that they may never be able to catch hold of again ... What is happening here?

Sad, but more than that, worrisome. How deep the distrust must be that they can leave all that they have worked hard for, just on a phone message!

Some strong message needs to be sent out to anybody indulging in systematic attack, whether verbal or physical, on people of other states. Only then will such rumors be made ineffective to cause any major panic.

This is the most wicked kind of rumour mongering. Whether it is politically/communally motivated, or just plain mischief, it is as much terrorism as planting a bomb. The people responsible should be punished severely, but I doubt that they will be traced and prosecuted.

So far it has just been rumors about stray incidents of violence in Bangalore, pamphlets and rumors about rumors . Not a single person who has been hurt has showed up or complained so far. It can't be that hard to track the sources of the SMS'es ,phamplets or anything on the internet!

Are you advocating that people stay back to ascertain the veracity of the rumors? There are reports in local papers in Bangalore about police refusing to lodge FIR. Nothing unusual about that. FWIW, the message also spread as a word of mouth, much less by SMS as claimed.

Then there is the case of attack on the Tibetans. If you Google a bit some NRI was also attacked (due to his mongoloid features).

A point to note is that the social strata involved. These people were mainly cooks, security gaurds, workers etc. These are not the people who'll be on able to able to hang around police station insisting on a FIR (they don't have the bribe to get it done) neither they are the kind that appears on TV channels 24x7.

It is distasteful to note that people are putting down this incident as matter of 'distrust' based on 'rumours'. We went down this route in late 80s and early 90s. The result was ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits from their homeland.

God forbid this happens to your or my communities and people were to hop onto to the Internet to discuss 'rumors' and 'distrusts'.

Nick,

Nowdays it takes a click of a mouse to track down electronic communication.

The government at the center with vast array of intelligence apparatus at its disposal is not really friends with the local government in Bangalore, to put it mildly. They'll not spare any lapses on part of the local/state government.

The people that have fled and local/state population are not even political constituencies of the dispensation at the center. Any miscreants among these are not likely spared either as there is no political fallout.

So, what gives? Join the dots.

The most worrying thing is, there is just no faith in the police, none at all, even when this has been big news all week, there is still no faith in the police.

I am not advocating anything , just stating facts!
Are you advocating they run home in fear every time there is rumourmongering or a perverted SMS campaign?

Yes, the police now claim the have arrested the 3 responsible for all this ruckus!
True, but the articulate community leaders (as you may has seen on the various channels) would have thrown light on any of these specific instances if it had been brought to their notice , instead other than "the not receiving justice in the Richard Loitam case" which happened a few months back,they have nothing else to say about any violence perpetuated against them!

A dispassionate enquiry is not a search for palatable truth , the Truth is often distasteful! The distrust and fear has been there for a long time now, these recent incidents have just brought everything to a boil.

Apples and oranges!
That's exactly the problem old_boy,looking at people as your community and my community. If we all believed that the only community that matters and worth belonging to is the community of the human race , all this nonsense would end quickly! But we are still very primitive, so it'll only be a pipe dream for at least a century or two .

How can there be any faith in the police , when the police are biggest extortionists, and they and their politician masters are the most powerful mafia who wield real power in the land!

What is distasteful in this? Is it not distrust that they are ready to accept a message without any basis, but not ready to believe any officials? And were these not 'rumours'?

Trying to be one up by putting up such senseless argument will solve no purpose.

According to the union home secretary the fake pictures and bulk sms'es originated from servers Pakistan as per information provided by Google!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/15548607.cms

[I'm on holiday, hence lack of response]

I'm away, back home in a day or two: what's the current situation on this? People still leaving? Anyone coming back? Any further arrests?

From a quick look at the thread, we have mention of arrests (bear suspected of crime: police arrest dog and extract confession that it is a bear?) and of Pakistani involvement. If international terrorism, clever, cheaper than sending people with guns --- and it stinks.

Is there any poopie in India that will not get blamed on Pakistan? (Or, of course, China. Oh, let's not forget about Bangladesh. Of the illegal immigrant Muslim variety, most preferably. Hey, where there's a scapegoat, there's always a will.)

This does indeed seem to have started based on rumours that went out of control. No attacks, no targeting happened. Just one large mass exodus from Bangalore and a to a much smaller extent from other cities.

Apparently the photos that started it were uploaded from Pakistan.

As far as the illegal immigration from Bangladesh is concerned, it is for real and successive govt at the center have decided not to deal with it as it is convenient for them. More on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal...ation_in_India

Mach, I thought you are a well read person on issues relating to India.

So dig a bit deeper and in all likelihoods, you will pity and feel sorry for India, for having to live with neighbours like Pakistan and China.